


95 Days

by virgil



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Angst, Book 54 Spoilers, Fluff, Gen, Hurt, everyone is grownups now........ wild, growth!!!!, it's jake's birthday, set in the middle of The Rachel journey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 18:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virgil/pseuds/virgil
Summary: It's been about three months into the expedition onboard The Rachel. Cassie gave Jake a video to watch on his birthday. The day has come around and Jake is lost in old thoughts, old feelings, memories. Time to watch it. Jake POV.





	95 Days

**Author's Note:**

> Big spoilers for the end of the series. Do people still care about that? This series wrapped up in 2001. Anyways SHOUTOUT to Morph Club Podcast for getting me extremely hot on Animorphs again, yowza! anyway let's get angsty

It was my birthday.

Which is one of those things that slips your mind when you’re in space. Days and nights aren’t quite the same up here. But I knew it, because I knew how exactly how many days it had been. There’s a notch in the metal beside my bed for each one. Each sleep cycle. Yeerk-built architecture was strong, but still fell to the simple human knife.

It was the third month, ninety-five days after emerging from Z-Space, six weeks after jumping into it from Earth. Marco was still Marco, of course, and was at the time butting heads with Santorelli over which of the freeze-dried foods was _closest_ to a peanut butter sandwich. Santorelli wasn’t amused, but Marco seemed to be having a decent time. He’s good at that. 

The _Rachel_ was a large enough ship that we had a couple separate living areas. This was good, since being in cramped quarters with a former Andalite, two former best friends, and two students for upwards of three months was proving to be daunting. Earth was literally lightyears behind us by now.

Before I left, before we all left, Cassie sent me a video. She marked it to not be opened until my birthday, and I obliged. Other than finding Ax, I hadn’t been looking forward to anything. Now I had this.

Marco had brought a small DVD player into my room, one of the portable units that we received as supplies. He had the other one, but he swore to me that if I didn’t watch Spaceballs at least once during this trip he wouldn’t forgive me. It’s stuff like that that reminds me of our dynamic, even now. I brood, he laughs. We work well together.

There’s a lot of time to think on a spaceship. Sure, there’s training. But between that and sleep, I’ve been trying not to beat myself up about the past. About Rachel, about Cassie. About everything.

There was a future that we could have had, me and Cassie. I knew, she knew it, but it turns out that the people you are in the darkness don’t always survive in the light. She found something, she even found someone, and I... I kept wandering. Frustrated, angry.

I put in the disc and waited for her again. Like I had, so many times before.

“Hey Jake. Happy birthday.”

It was her, in front of some mountain, somewhere I didn’t recognize. She was alone, or, at least, was alone in the video. As far as I knew, she was still dating Ronnie. A good man. Not broken.

“I wanted to give you this because I wanted to... to clear the air.”

It was impossible for me to not think of her as we were then. Young and stupid, and so much more desperate. We wouldn’t kiss in romantic ways, not really. We would steal a kiss before a battle, or after a battle. When things were calm for a moment. It never worked for us in any other situation. I don’t know if it ever would have.

“I know you’ve been struggling. I know that I could have reached out more. But I also knew that there was nothing that I could give you that would help.”

She looks down, then. She’s wearing a flannel, hiking shorts. As always. As she always would.

“After everything ended... we... we all drifted apart. I’m happy that I am where I am, and I’m happy for you coming to talk to me before setting off.”

She laughs. “I don’t think I would have gotten the idea for this otherwise.”

“I love you, Jake. I loved all of us, Rachel and Tobias too. I know you loved us too, Jake. I know that it is hard to face a torrent of bad decisions in the eye and still feel like you’re worthy of love, but Jake... you are. You are, because I knew you always were.”

I didn’t cry much, anymore. In so many ways, I felt wrung out by war, all my tears already spent. But she could always make me break. That’s Cassie, all her heart and soul.

“I’m happy now, Jake. I’m happy where I am, and with who I’m with. I want you to be happy too. I want to see you again, as friends, until we’re old and our kids can play together. I want you to die somewhere other than the battlefield, Jake.”

In that moment, I was acutely aware of where I was, of who I was with. People I loved. People I cared for, going to rescue a boy who meant as much to me as any of the rest of them.

“So, happy birthday, Big Jake. See you soon.”

The video ended, abruptly. I didn’t mind. The message had been conveyed.

It was one thing for the war to end, one thing to lose so many that we cared for. And in my case, to also lose Cassie. But she was right. I didn’t lose her. I didn’t lose Marco, I didn’t lose Tobias, even, really. I lost myself. Drifted. I don’t know if that’s something I can fix, maybe it is just part of me that I’m going to die in agony, somewhere on a distant planet, wherever Ax is. In some ridiculous final crusade, in some morph I can’t even imagine.

But maybe... maybe I won’t. Maybe we’ll make it out of this, and Marco will crack some stupid joke, and Tobias will judge us for being too reckless, and Ax will come to Earth with us. It’s not that ridiculous. We’ve made worse decisions. This entire found family is built on worse decisions, on recklessness, on instinct. We don’t have to grow apart forever. Maybe we can just grow.

From the galley, I hear Tobias chiding Marco. Santorelli is laughing. Even Menderash is laughing. It sounds good. It sounds like home.


End file.
